


This Looks Familiar (Vaguely Familiar)

by AnaliseGrey



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (but just as a descriptor- no actual vomiting occurs in this fic), Abuse of Authority, Blood, Blumentrio, Body Horror, Caleb is a mess, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Trauma, Emetophobia, Gen, I hardly know what this is guys, Murder, POV Second Person, Poisoning, Pre-Stream (Critical Role), Spoilers, Suicidal Thoughts, Trent Ikithon is his own warning, caleb's backstory, so many spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 16:02:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19023265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnaliseGrey/pseuds/AnaliseGrey
Summary: A look at Caleb's timeline.





	This Looks Familiar (Vaguely Familiar)

**Author's Note:**

> I dunno, guys. I started writing this after work yesterday, and it's been eating my brain since. I'm not sure exactly what it is, or that I even like it, entirely, but it's out of my head now, which is good. 
> 
> Unbeta-ed, all mistakes my own.
> 
> This is canon-compliant for major story events, covering from pre-stream as we know it up though episode 31, though contains spoilers up through episode 49.
> 
> Caleb's in...well, his normal headspace, so it's not great. Please read with caution.

You’re five when you learn to read.

Mutti’s always said you were bright, that you have a head for letters and numbers. All the same, it’s a surprise to her when one day out of the blue you read the side of passing carnival wagon as you walk to town to drop off some of the sewing she’d taken in. You hear her telling papa about it later as she’s preparing dinner and you’re playing with Frumpkin, and it’s the thrill of your young life when a few days later a book appears. It’s old and worn, some of the pages aren’t as firmly seated in the binding as they should be, but the pictures inside are colorful and bright, and the words simple enough you can stumble through them if you try.

The book is memorized by the end of the week, and you try not to show your disappointment when your parents tell you it may be awhile before you can get another. You’re five, but already you understand that your family doesn’t have a lot of money, not like some of the other families in Blumenthal, and so you take it with as much grace as a five year old can. Your lip only trembles slightly as you nod, and go back and reread your book again. It quickly becomes your most prized possession.

It takes a lot of work to earn the gold for it, and then even more for the paper and ink to transcribe it, but at twelve you learn your first spell. When you’re not helping papa in the fields or mutti with her laundry work, you spend every spare minute studying. Winter is coming in a few short months, and candles are expensive; though you’re only twelve you still want to help, to pull your own weight, slight as it is. You’re so proud when you master it, when you show them what you can do, and their eyes shine in wonder in the glimmer of the dancing lights you conjure, glowworm clutched in your hand as you lower them from tracing the somatic component in the air.

The money you save on candles that winter lets your parents buy a goose for New Dawn- a _whole goose_ \- and belly full of meat and a sense of accomplishment, you vow to do more, to learn and grow.

It takes time- books are expensive and hard to come by, as are the special inks and paper needed for transcription- so it isn’t until you’re fourteen that you call fire to your hands for the first time. The dancing lights are well and good, a staple now in the winters, but nothing compares to the ecstatic glee of watching a streak of fire shoot from your hand toward the stone wall you’ve been practicing at for the better part of an hour. You walk to the wall and check it, noting the light scorch mark against the stones, how they’re still warm to the touch. You also know the streak didn’t hit quite where you wanted it to, that it wobbled as it left your hand, and so you back up and try again.

And again.

And again.

By the time the sun is setting over the horizon and the first stars are beginning to twinkle in the sky, you’ve got the movement perfected, and are hitting where you want four times out of five. Mutti scolds you when you get home; you’ve missed dinner and you’re far too thin as it is for a boy your age. When you flick your hand at the fireplace, uttering the proper word and the same streak of fire you’ve been practicing sets the dying fire there aflame again with ease, her eyes grow wide, stunned. You don’t see the look she gives your papa when you turn to sit at the table and dig into the leftover stew she’d kept warm for you.

Just after your fifteenth birthday, a representative from the Soltryce Academy approaches your parents, and your whole life changes.

Objectively, you know that cities are big- you’ve read about them, after all, about the thousands of people who live in them, the paved streets far as the eye can see, but it does _nothing_ to prepare you for seeing it in person, for the overwhelming noise and chaos that greets you as your carriage passes through the gates into Rexentrumm for the first time.

You see more people and buildings in the first five minutes than are in all of Blumenthal, and you wonder, quietly in the back of your mind, if you’re really cut out for this.

Your carriage arrives at the Academy, and you’re instantly smitten. The quiet corridors seem to stretch forever, occasionally occupied by robed students speaking quietly as they walk together, and as you and two other children, also from Blumenthal, are led to the dormitories, you find yourself excited, eager to get going. You want to learn _everything_ , and you know this is where you can do it.

The first few weeks are difficult, requiring a great deal of adjustment. Speaking Zemnian is discouraged when in the school proper, Common the preferred language, and you find yourself spending your scant downtime with the other two from Blumenthal- Astrid and Eodwulf- just so that you can enjoy the comfort of speaking in your mother tongue for a short while. You all grow closer, learning to depend on each other, and later you’ll wonder if that was intentional.

The first semester passes quickly, and you’re both proud and anxious when you’re summoned to the office of Archmage Ikithon. He’s friendly enough, asks you how your studies are progressing, has polite questions about your interests, which schools of magic you prefer, if there’s anything you’ve been interested in that hasn’t been touched on in your classes yet.

You don’t know that Ikithon doesn’t run these little interview sessions for everyone.

Another semester begins not long after, and while the work gets harder, you barely notice. As your mutti’s said, you have a head for letters and numbers, and that appears to translate to magic theory, to memorizing the exact placement your hands should occupy in space when casting, for calling to mind the intricate sigils necessary for working your will upon the universe. It’s hard, but it’s exciting, and you go after any new knowledge offered to you like a starving hound with a meaty bone.

At the end of your first year Ikithon approaches you and offers you, along with your friends, an opportunity. The chance to study privately with him, at his estate in the country. He tells you it will be hard work, harder even than anything you’ve done so far at the Academy, but that you will learn the skills necessary to keep the Empire strong, to keep it secure against her enemies. It’s everything you’ve wanted, the chance to prove yourself, to keep your home safe- your _family_ safe- the chance to learn, to push yourself and excel. You accept with only a second’s thought, and go to bed that evening filled with boundless anticipation of the wonders you’ll learn, the skills you’ll master at Ikithon’s side.

You’re sixteen when you learn what it takes to be the best. You used to be proud, happy to show off what you’d learned to your parents, but the things you’re learning now you know you’ll never tell them. You tell yourself it’s for the greater good, that it is in service to your king, to the Empire, and therefore it’s worth it, even as the feel of blood drying on your skin makes your stomach turn, though it’s not your own; maybe _especially_ because it’s not your own. You learn many skills, just as Ikithon promised- you learn that even small things can have a major impact if done correctly. You learn the art of interrogation, of subterfuge, of patience. You learn to pick up flickers of expression others would miss, how to press your advantage to get what you need.

You learn to bleed for your country.

You learn the feel of crystals shifting under your skin, the spark of energy heady and thick like honey in your veins even as you wish to claw them out. You don’t dare- Ikithon will only restrain you and put them back. Despite everything, you want to prove yourself, to show him he didn’t make a mistake when he plucked you from the rank and file of the Academy. He told you you’d do great things, that you would rise above, and it feels like something worse than death, the prospect of letting him down. So you persevere, you press on, and do what you must, what your country asks of you.

 _Everything_ your country asks of you.

Graduation is close. You’ve spent your seventeenth birthday in the country, hard at work, but you’re given leave to go home, to visit your parents before the ceremony that will be held at the Academy proper in a few weeks. You’ll be a newly minted warmage then, the three of you, and your parents are delighted when you come home to see them.

It’s been months, almost a year since they saw you last, and mutti exclaims at how tall you’ve grown, at how thin you still are, and isn’t that man feeding you? You smile and kiss her cheek, assuring her they feed you just fine, not to worry. Papa says you look tired, an edge of worry to his voice, and you wave it off. You’ve been busy, after all. It takes a lot of hard work and effort to become a warmage for the Empire, to be someone they’ll be proud of. Mutti tuts and cups your face in her weathered hands, warm and smelling of the lavender she uses to scent the clean laundry. “ _We’ve always been proud of you, liebchen."_

After the bustle of the city, the intensity of your training at Ikithon’s estate, the quiet of Blumenthal is almost deafening. You feel you could hear a pin drop from a mile away, and so it’s laughably easy to hear it that evening, the quiet voices from down by the hearth as you lay on your pallet in the loft above, still awake.

You hear them talk of revolution, of insurrection. The things you hear them say are the sorts of confessions you’d normally have to draw out of people after days of interrogation, and to hear them discuss it so openly, so _freely-_ and in your childhood home, no less- makes your blood run cold. You miss the rest of the conversation entirely, the rush of blood in your ears drowning it out.

You spend the remainder of your visit in a dull haze, and when your parents wish you a farewell, that they’ll see you in a few weeks for your graduation, you have to use all your learned skill to not flinch from their touch. They are _traitors_ , disgusting, the both of them, and you don’t know how you never knew, how you never _saw_. The only explanation is that you simply didn’t know better, before. Now you are better trained, more discerning. Ikithon has helped open your eyes, and you are nothing but thankful for that.

It is only a week or so before graduation when Ikithon calls all of you- yourself, Astrid, Eodwulf- into his office, his expression solemn and apologetic as you’ve never seen it. He shows you the reports, the findings of an investigation, and even as you start reading you know what the outcome will be. It wasn’t just _your_ parents, but theirs as well. There’s proof of conspiracy, and all three of you know what that means. You knew it on some level back in Blumenthal, and even as Ikithon gently says he can have it dealt with, can have some of his other agents handle it, you hear yourself interrupt him, something you’ve rarely dared to do, but in this instance feels warranted.

“No, sir. We will be glad to do our duty for the Empire.”

The look of pride on his face at your words only solidifies your conviction that it was the correct thing to say.

You move quickly, Ikithon teleporting you all to Blumenthal so no time is wasted, to lessen the chance of anyone escaping judgement. You go to Eodwulf’s first and wait at the gate as he slips inside the house, a knife already in-hand. You know it’s only a few minutes, can feel the seconds ticking by steadily in your mind like the movement of metronome, but it seems to take an impossibly long time before he comes back out, face pale but satisfied, wiping the knife on a cloth. Eodwulf doesn’t say anything, but you see Ikithon place a hand on his shoulder and whisper a few words to him as you move on to Astrid’s, and he looks steadier for it after.

You sit down to a late meal with her parents, all of you knowing better than to eat the soup after she’s helped her mother serve it. Her poisons are fast-acting and it’s mere minutes before her parents lie dead at the table, their eyes wide and sightless as you all push back and rise to leave.

Your house is on the other side of town, along the edge of the wheat fields. It was already late in the evening when you arrived in Blumenthal, and the moons are high in the heavens as your home comes into view, the thatched roof limned in silver by the moonlight. It’s quiet, the house dark, and you know at this hour your parents will be in bed. Eodwulf helps you move the hay cart from the side of the house around to the front, blocking the door, and as you both step back, you think to when you were fourteen and calling fire for the first time. It had taken so much effort then; now the motions and words are so practiced it takes no effort at all to flick the mote of sparkling red towards the cart full of hay.

It catches easily, the fire quickly consuming the cart and moving on, tongues of flame licking at the roof and beginning to devour it whole, the roar of it deafening, the heat blistering even at a distance.

And yet, somehow, despite the distance, despite the roar of the fire, at seventeen you learn the sound of your parents’ screams.

The sound has barely registered before you’re running forward. You don’t know what you’ll do- you’re practiced in creating fire, not stopping it- but you can’t stand back and do nothing as their cries grow louder, more panicked. You hear a banging noise, vaguely register it as the sound of them trying to get the door open against the weight of the cart. Glass breaks nearby, and you think that’s it, they’ll escape from the window, everything will be fine, somehow.

But nobody exits.

There are hands on you, pulling you back despite your struggles, and you realize the screaming you’re hearing is yourself; the cries from inside the house have stopped.

You’re seventeen when they leave you at the asylum.

You’re eighteen when…

 

You’re nineteen-

                                   Twenty-

 

                                                             Twenty-three...

 

                                                                                                  Twenty-five...

  


You’re twenty-eight when the clouds lift.

It doesn’t take you long to figure out where you are, to remember what’s happened. You’ve always been quick, been sharp. Mutti always says-

It takes you a few weeks, time spent waiting, watching, learning, and in the end you kill the man whose job it was to watch you, to prevent this very occurrence from happening. He’s not the first man you’ve ever killed, and you know he won’t be the last; you’re far too pragmatic to believe otherwise.

You steal the necklace he wears, and you run.

You’re thirty-one when you summon Frumpkin for the first time.

It’s not the original Frumpkin- she was old when you left for Rexentrumm, and your mother had written to tell you of her passing while you were at school- but you still decide to name your familiar after her.

It’s taken time to scrounge the supplies, to figure out how to make the spell work. Ikithon had never let any of you attempt it, and doing it now feels like a small act of rebellion, though it comes far too late.

You sit in the small clearing with the materials you’ve collected, the brazier you’ve stolen, and you concentrate. Your voice is rough with disuse, the hand motions jerky and uncoordinated, and you’re half convinced the spell will fail, all the components wasted.

An hour goes by, and even as you’re sure that it won’t work, you still push your will into it, sending a call out into the into the planes to see what, if anything, might answer, with only the slightest hope of success. The magic bursts around you like a soap bubble, the energies dissipating along with the smoke from the incense and herbs as the charcoal burns out. When it clears, there before you is a cat. It’s lean, small and spotted, and it watches you curiously for a moment before stepping forward on dainty paws to climb up onto your lap, a warm, comforting weight, purring and meowing with abandon. You wrap your arms around the new Frumpkin, and you cry like you haven’t done in over a decade.

When you’re thirty-three, you meet a goblin girl in a jail cell.

Neither of you know what to make of each other at first- she puffs up, tries to look bigger and more threatening than she is, and you- you’re so tired, and hungry, and utterly exhausted with the effort of trying to not want to die that you can’t be bothered to posture back. As far as you can tell, the only reason you’re alive now, the _only_ reason at all- other than sheer dumb luck- is so that you can survive long enough to make amends, to try to undo the catastrophic wrong you’ve done.

Nothing else matters. You don’t know how you expect to make this happen, you can’t even begin to fathom it, but if nothing else, you know you can’t do anything if you’re dead, and so far that’s what’s keeping you alive.

Over the next week or so she warms up to you. You think it’s likely a matter of boredom more than anything else, and when she asks you your name, you pull one out of the ether. You don’t expect to have to keep it long; at the rate things are going one or both of you will be dead before the month is out. You expect her to grow tired of one-word responses, to get fed-up with grunts instead of conversation, but all it seems to do is spur on a protective streak in her.

She tries to intervene, once, to try to stop the guards from beating you, but while her fierceness befits a dragon, she’s still small and easily tossed aside. After, you smile at her through bloodied lips and declare her brave.

“I’m not. No comma, you know?”

You don’t, but that’s alright.

You watch her nimble fingers, playing with a button she’s stolen from a guard when they weren’t looking, and you ask her how she is with locks.

It’s not twenty-four hours later that the two of you are stumbling out of the burning jail together, Frumpkin dashing ahead of you into the night.

The next six months, while difficult, are easier by far than any in recent memory. There’s a strength in numbers, and you consider- adding just one person has made such a difference- while you’re still hungry more often than not, you’re no longer at the edge of starvation, trying to survive off bark and berries like when you were on your own. There’s someone to watch your back, someone who cares if you live or die (it certainly isn’t you). If one extra person made this much difference, how much more difference would a third person make? A fourth? Your brain spins with possibility, at the potential for not just one more person, but a _group_.

A plan has been forming in your mind for the last few months, and while you know how helpful Nott could be in executing it, you also fear for her. She’s young, still, and of the two of you, she’s absolutely the better person. You want her safe, you want her cared for, even if it’s not you doing it.

It probably shouldn’t be you doing it.

You’re still thirty-three when you reach Trostenwald, when you meet the others.

A brash young woman with fists as hardened as her gaze.

A blue tiefling girl that carries chaos around her like a cloud of butterflies.

A half-orc man that smells of salt water despite being miles and miles from any sign of ocean.

The large intimidating circus woman who could snap you in half but has a voice gentle as a soft rain.

The joyful lavender tattooed tiefling, also from the circus, whose smile and tongue are as sharp as his swords.

And somehow, despite your misgivings, you all come together to kill a fiend, and decide that perhaps you’ll travel together, if only for a little while.

Slowly, these mad people begin to grow on you.

You know how dangerous it is to get attached. You’re already pushing your luck with Nott, and to grow close to so many others is nothing but pure folly, but it happens anyway.

You’re thirty-three when you help save a town from gnolls.

You go to a mine to attempt to retrieve the people stolen away, and in the resulting fight you see Nott fall. A burning anger the likes of which you haven’t let yourself feel in a long time erupts from you, the emotion a luxury you can’t normally afford. The fire comes at your call, simple as breathing, and the priest’s vestments and hair catch, as easily as hay, as easily as thatch, easily as a house, easily as your p a r e n t s-

The next you’re fully aware you’re back in Alfield, being lauded as heroes, and you don’t have words to express how repulsive that is, how _wrong_ for anyone to look at you and see anything other than filth, than trash, than the lowest kind of shit.

You arrive in Zadash for the first time.

You ingratiate yourself to a crime lord.

You fight in the Victory Pit and emerge not only alive, but somehow victorious.

You hear _his_ voice and fall into a well of visceral terror at the prospect of having to face him, knowing the only thing standing between the two of you in this moment is sixteen years and a necklace.

There’s a library, and you know if you can just get inside you might find answers, the knowledge necessary to push yourself forward toward your goal. To gain entry, you must tell a story. It’s a story you know by heart. You can’t forget, the words seared into your heart and mind like a brand. It will tear you open to tell it, but it doesn’t matter. You need to get into the library, and this is how it must be.

The story pours from your lips like vomit, just as bitter and stinking, and by the end you can’t help but see the looks of horror on their faces, the looks of pity, and it’s the pity that hurts the most, as undeserved as it is.

In the end it’s worth it. The next day you go into the library, and it’s an almost physical pain when you have to leave again.

You flee Zadash, getting out just ahead of the war panic, two jobs for the Gentleman on the docket.

You rescue a small bird child in a swamp.

You fight fish people under a tree.

You get into a fight about a bowl, get a shave and advice from the large woman with a longsword; you also suffer the most awkward hug of your life, though that comes a little later in the morning.

You think your life has become far more complicated since you met these people.

Hupperdook is a unique experience.

There’s a drinking contest, dancing and mistaken identities. You help some children get their parents back, and then give the parents a new child in the process.

The fireworks at night fill your friends’ eyes with wonder, with joy, and things are good, progressing well.

You’ve barely turned thirty-four (not that you’ve told anyone- it’s hardly a matter of concern) when you wake up to find three of your number missing, leaving no trace but blood in the grass and a palpable absence. You’re unsure when you let them get so close, when you let them slip past so many of your defenses, but it’s too late now, and you must deal with the consequences.

You’re thirty-four and ten days when one of your number falls in the snow with a splash of red, and doesn’t get back up.

You dig a hole, put him inside, and it feels _wrong_ , wrong to put someone that colorful in the ground. But you know it’s not him anymore. He was never so still, never so quiet, never so ashen and pale. You tell yourself it’s not him you’re burying. Just a vessel.

You leave a note, just in case, and hang the coat on a pole in the ground. A fitting marker, a colorful testament to a colorful person.

It hurts, another wound on your heart, and you wonder how many more you can suffer and live.

( _Lots_ , the quiet voice in the back of your mind says, the voice that sounds like a young Zemnian boy, and you know he’s right.)

As one member of your group goes, so another appears, a gentle giant in pinks and greens. You hardly know what to make of him, only that it fills you with relief when he easily agrees to help you, accepts your offer of ‘... _anything_ ’ in repayment for his assistance.

You get them back.

You’re almost dead by then, the battle hard-won, and you take a certain amount of satisfaction at getting the killing blow. It’s not enough, it will _never_ be enough, but it will have to do.

You’ve finished your second task for the Gentleman, but there’s no joy in a job well-done, no celebration or sense of accomplishment. You succeeded, but at far too high a cost.

You pass the grave on your way back, stop to pay your respects, let the others say goodbye, and you don’t blame Yasha for leaving. You think if you were stronger, if you were firmer in your convictions you’d leave as well. It would be better, you know, but you can’t bring yourself to do it. Perhaps someday you’ll be strong enough.

You go back to Zadash for awhile, take time for everyone to recover, such that you can. Fjord ventures off by himself, searching for his own answers near as you can tell, guilt weighing the man down like an anchor. You’re well-versed in guilt, in self-loathing, and so it’s easy to see in others. Unlike you, however, he doesn’t actually deserve it, and you tell him so, when you have the chance. You’re not sure he believes you or Beauregard when you say it.

Jester copes in the only way she knows how, by causing an astounding amount of chaos in a very short period of time, dragging Nott into it with her. Jester wears a smile everywhere she goes, chipper as ever, and if you weren’t so well-trained, you might not notice- but you are, and you do. You see how it doesn’t quite reach her eyes, that her laughs ring hollow a lot of the time. You want to tell her it’s okay to not be okay, but who are _you_ to say that to anyone? It would ring false coming from you, of all people, and so you let it go and hope someone else will do it.

After some discussion, you all decide to go to the Menagerie Coast.

Jester will get to see her mama; you hope it will help. Fjord is still looking for answers, and there’s the chance to find them in Nicodranis if you all play your cards right.

You prepare to leave, and you look at them all- these wonderful, caring, chaotic people- and you realize you’ve come to think of them as yours. You’re still wary, still scared of letting them in, what might happen if the wrong people learn about your connections. But you also realize on some level it's not up to you at this point. In the span of just under two and a half months they’re wormed their way in, through your best defenses and intentions, and while you know it can’t end well for so many reasons, you wonder if maybe Nott doesn’t have the right of it. You can’t admit it, even to yourself, not entirely, not yet, but-

You’re thirty-four and forty-five days old when you look around yourself and think, ever-so-cautiously, and still with a healthy amount of fear and trepidation-

 

- _family_.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Major props to Critrole stats for their [Time Passed page](http://www.critrolestats.com/timepassed-wm) for the Wildmount Campaign. It was super helpful!
> 
> Title pulled from the lyrics of the song, "I'm Going to Go Back There Someday" from the Muppet Movie.
> 
> Want to yell at me, ask a question, or just say hi? Come find me on tumblr at [Analisegrey](http://analisegrey.tumblr.com/) or on twitter at the same handle.


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